849/An Ace and a Shed

An Ace and a Shed
Date of Scene:	05 December 2023
Location:	The Shed
Synopsis:	Kyouka shows Homura the Shed and catches her up on events. Homura shares a secret in return.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouka Inai, Homura Akemi

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Kyouka Inai has posed:
    It's been a busy couple of months. A lot has happened, much of it very quickly. Kyouka hasn't been the best about keeping in touch with all of her contacts, but that doesn't mean she isn't interested in doing so. Just that there's been precious little time.

    Homura is one of her contacts she has little other avenues of reaching besides directly. That's why at some point during the late autumn, on a sunny but chilly afternoon, she has texted the dark-haired girl and requested her to meet behind the school buildings, near a small but dense patch of woods at the back of the school grounds.

    Homura will find her loitering at the edge of the woods, near an obvious path entrance which disappears among the trees. Sunglasses in place, jacket on, she's standing with her hands in her pockets chewing on a piece of bubblegum.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    With everything happening Homura hadn't very present either. She'd always been to her classes, of course, but of all the important things happening around Tokyo she hadn't been very present. It was the smaller things she'd been focusing on. The smaller things, and the much bigger ones.

    Look, being a timetraveler isn't easy. Unlike most Puella she doesn't just have to keep herself a supply of Grief Seeds, she has to keep a supply of weapons too. Which is why if Kyouka had paid attention to the national newspapers she might have noticed something about a major inconsistency in one of the JSDF supply bases outside the city. Whole loads of weapons, ammunition, and supplies had simply gone missing as if they were never there.

    Harder to notice was that one construction project near the waterfront that had shut down one day and never started. The cranes were still up and there was a huge pit in the ground, but a regulatory nightmare had suddenly ensnared everything. Don't look too close, or you might notice that it's now half filled with bricks of C4 all programmed to blow on the same remote detonator.

    It's true that Homura technically has more time than anyone else, but she also has to set up for a one mahou fight against an uberwitch. She doesn't actually believe it will come down to that, but she flat out refuses to cede the possibility that it might.

    So she hasn't been keeping track of everything that's been happening, and she's been relying on people like Kyouka to keep her informed in case there are things she really needs to know. It might be backwards from what was expected, but when she's called for she arrives.

    With Kyouka hanging around Homura will approach from the path. Before she makes contact her school uniform flickers purple and is replaced with her usual henshined outfit of white, purple and black. She casts her eyes around her, cautiously scanning despite the fact she's rather certain she's not being lured into a trap. It never hurts to be careful.

    When she wanders into view she raises an eyebrow at Kyouka, "No smoking in the trees? I'd think this would be the least offensive place for that habit." The joke introduction made she comes to a stop next to the guidance councilor, "It's been a while since we talked. I expect something is happening if you're contacting me now?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka glances up as Homura appears, in henshin, walking out of the woods- which is kind of funny because the place she wants to show the girl is back down that path into the woods. "Akemi-san," She greets, before rolling her eyes at the ribbing about her smoking, or lack thereof. "This is still on school grounds, you know. I don't need to get in trouble for that- I've got enough on my plate already."

    When the girl asks if something is happening, Kyouka blows out a breath. "A lot is happening. Too much. C'mon, I want to show you something." She turns and start walking down the path into the woods, gesturing for Homura to follow. The path itself is just dirt, but surprisingly clear and wider than it initially appears- it seems a lot of feed have been walking this way in recent days.

Homura Akemi has posed:
    An image of Kyouka sitting in her office in her chair holding a cigarette out the window pops into Homura's mind as the guidance councilor reminds her that the woods are on school grounds, but she doesn't say anything about it. Instead she nods and falls in at Kyouka's side, looking towards her out of the corner of her eye and quirking an eyebrow as she's led back the way she came.

    "On school grounds but out of the way and out of sight. This ought to be interesting." She's content to walk down the path a ways in silence, casting her purple eyes out again and searching even more closely for anything that might be hidden along the surprisingly worn down dirt path. After a short while of not noticing anything out of place she says, "Depending on what you have to say, I might have something to show you as well. Things have started to get complicated for me. Pieces I'd never expected are falling into place all on their own."

    She gives Kyouka another side eye, "I've been holding back and I'm sure you've noticed. That's not something I can afford to do anymore. It's time for me to go all in. So if a lot is happening, this might be the right time for me to do it."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Hey, everyone needs to break the rules sometimes. It's just that you need to pick your moments, not get complacent. Besides, she'd definitely get fired if she set the woods ablaze.

    She sighs absently when Homura starts talking about not holding back an going all in. "I'll help you if I can but honestly, resources are stretched pretty thin at the moment. I'll explain what I can but understand the situation is and has been... evolving at a pretty rapid pace."

    She leads Homura into a large clearing in the woods. In it stands what appears to be an old maintenance shed or a gardener's storage or something. She walks right up to it, twists the handle a certain way and pulls the door open... revealing a much larger, incongruous space within. It appears to be an old-style classroom, but it's definitely too big to actually be inside that shed.

    "Come on in." She says, entering and gesturing for Homura to follow. "Welcome to Mahou Tactical Operations... or as we like to call it, the Shed." She smirks. It's clear people have been in there- there's a smattering of personal items like notebooks or pens left on desks, cushions on a few of the old seats, and the blackboard is covered in writing, diagrams, and maps drawn in chalk. Nobody's here right now, though.

    "I was allowed access to this place, and decided if the bad guys get to hole up in Obsidian tower, we deserve a secret base, too."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Another short flashback for Homura, this time of her conversation with Madoka while she'd dumped out the arsenal she'd just raided from her shield in order to make sure everything was in order and ready to use. "It's the other way around," she replies, "I'm freshly resupplied. I have resources, I'm ready for missions. I'm not telling you there's something terrible going on I'm going to need help with, at least not yet. When my white whale does show up I'll be there to lend you details and let you know if you somehow haven't realized it's approach beforehand, but that isn't now."

    She quiets as they near the shed. Homura doesn't judge what she sees, watching the strange way the door is opened. When it swings open she stares deadpan into the classroom. She steps through, looking around, and then narrows her eyes at the window. "Not connected spaces like Obsidian, then. Or... it is, and you've a second opening for the window." She walks through the rows of desks, glancing around at the classroom. "The Shed? Not bad. With a single room I'd suggest an emergency exit on the door or window if you can manage it. One way in, two or three ways out. Maybe it's too soon to worry about getting raided when it's still got that new classroom smell."

    Walking up to what in a real classroom would be the teacher's desk, she hops up to sit on the desktop facing Kyouka and crossing one leg over the other. "Alright. Hit me with it. You said several things are coming together at once. What are they, and how soon?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Well, the plan is to improve security in several aspects." Kyouka notes absently. "For one, currently anyone who knows the handle trick can get in. That's not going to fly long-term, not with the way kids talk to each other." She's guilty of that herself, truth be told, but it's still a point. "Some kind of access key or credentials.. and escape routes. Other fancy stuff too hopefully. But we've only had access for a couple weeks, so right now it's basically just a meeting room." She pulls over one of the chairs and sits down on it, resting her elbow on the desk portion.

    "Oh all sorts of crap." She grumbles. "The big one is.. remember I had that meeting about the Obsidian thing? Midnight Tokyo? Well, seems like that's about to come to a head. It's been a whole odyssey, and there's no point going into the whole story because at this point it literally doesn't matter. Long story short, we finally cracked the code and got access to the actual plan for that whole thing. The Shitennou are corrupting shrines- holy sites on fonts of spiritual energy across Tokyo. For that whole 'overlapping the Dusk Zone' thing. We're not even sure exactly what they're doing, but I know the current plan is to try and purify the sites on the map in order to mess up whatever it is they've done."

    "The real crux of the matter is judging by the plans and the patterns, it seems like they're almost done. Which means that make-or-break time on this whole thing is rapidly approaching."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "It's in the nature of a lot people in this business to want to make friends and trust each other. It works out in the end more often than not, but if you're going to have a secret meeting place it's best if you can actually keep it secure." Homura agrees. She looks over at a bag left haphazard on one of the desk chairs. It could easily contain any kind of mundane recording device, never mind magical. Still, it's quite a step above meeting randomly in public and hoping a Dark General won't invite himself into the conversation. "Seems like you're on the right path. Get some people good at tech, portals, or security sweeps and you'll have something good going for you."

    After the short version of what's been happening is given Homura looks mildly surprised. "Midnight Tokyo? Huh. Seems like they've pulled it off quicker than the smaller version I'd seen before. The Dark Kingdom's got some real go getters; not good." She uncrosses her legs and leans forward, sitting back further on the desk to accomplish it. "Purification isn't something I'm good at. There's every chance I could turn one of those shrines into a smoking crater for you, but if it's spiritually corrupted already that might not mean much.' A frown and she shakes her head, "Witches are the furthest thing from scientific or reasonable, but while I've fought them long enough to begin to understand the logic, or lack of it, holy sites and spiritual energy isn't something I can advise easily on." Her shoulders shrug, "Though it sounds like the time for that has already passed. So what, then? A strike on the last target when they inevitably show up."

    She thinks it over for a few moments, then hops off the desk, taking a step or two towards Kyouka. "I'm sure you already know that, but the Shitennou are important. There's bigger things brewing with the Dark Kingdom than Midnight Tokyo. It's bad, really bad, but I didn't expect it to actually make it this far. They're showing a lot more initiative when, so far as I know, their focus should be elsewhere. We can't let this plot they've hatched up succeed, but if they've spent so much time and energy to pull it off that fast if it fails their boss is going to be pissed. Frankly? I'd expect two, maybe three of them to get cut down over something like that. If that happens when they've managed to stick together so far? Well. Things might get ugly. Gentle souls can only take so much. It might be like pushing a domino over and watching the entire group get wiped off the board. They're on the wrong side of things, but whichever side they're on we're going to need them for things that come in the future."

    She's showing more of her hand than she has in the past. She's had strange information before, but now she's acting like she knows a whole lot more of the inner dynamics of the Shitennou and the Dark Kingdom than she really should. "Does Sailor Moon have a plan, or is she playing it by ear and reacting as things come? I'm better, a lot better, if I can plan in advanced, but I have a few aces up my sleeves if we need to salvage a deteriorating situation." She scans the room again, then nods. "I think it's time I showed you one of them."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka considers Homura as she talks about the Shitennou and the Dark Kingdom as if she knows a lot more about them than it makes sense that she would know- she doesn't show suspicion or surprise on her face, but she's clearly contemplative. "That," She says, after a pause, "Is nothing I don't already know, though I'm surprised to be hearing it from you. Honestly, I can't tell you the specifics of what is in motion in that particular sphere.. no offense at all, because I know you're trustworthy, or at least I believe you are, but there are some confidences I won't betray. Suffice it to say that there is a plan, and that Sailor Moon is involved in that plan. If you're referring to the Silver Crystal when you say their attention should be elsewhere, trust me- it's not being ignored. I told you a lot of things were happening all at once. But this Midnight Tokyo plot is, as near as I can tell, the most urgent."

    "I don't want you to blow anything into a crater... yet. And I don't have enough clear information that I'm at liberty to share to give you as much as you want. But I wanted to warn you- you're pretty much spot-on. We're going to purify shrines as a precaution but it's likely to come down to preventing the last pieces being put into place, and that's likely to involve force. You're good at force. Keep your phone handy. I'm not sure of the timing, but it won't be long, relatively speaking."

    She looks interested when Homura talks of showing her one of the aces up her sleeve. "I'm listening."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    "I'll be on standby, and I'll have my phone ready," Homura replies. She stops moving closer and smiles ruefully for a moment. "It's still funny to me if I think about it. I'm not even close to the heavy firepower. My weapon is even a shield. I've had to work again and again at finding ways to fight using mundane weapons, because I barely have any native attack powers from my magic at all. I can bomb a site to dust if I need it, but I've never been an offensive fighter." She holds her arm up in front of herself, showing Kyouka her shield. She might, briefly, start to hear a whirring noise.

    The next moment Kyouka finds herself sitting in exactly the same place, exactly the same time. Except the room seems to have been completely rearranged around her. Everything that was on the left is now on the right, and all the chairs other than hers have been stacked upside down and haphazard into some kind of pyramid, and the back wall of the classroom seems to have been completely walled off with bricks.

    Wait, no, that's not bricks. That's blocks of C4. The air is oddly still, there's none of the usual sound from various mechanical and biological things other than the two of them. Homura's hand is now on her shoulder, instantly in front of her and close. And the world seems to have been entirely leached of color.

    "I'm more of a support mage, really," Homura notes dryly. "This is how I can be so effective, and sneak into almost anywhere without being caught." She lifts her hand, and the next thing Kyouka will feel will be her hand setting back down on her other shoulder. The C4 is gone, the chairs have all been placed at the desks again, but they're still reversed from where they'd started. Other than the one Kyouka is at herself, of course. "I've been keeping this secret very close to my chest. I can stop time, and anything that isn't touching me freezes. It's efficient, so I can keep it up for as long as I need. I could have painted the walls while I was at it, but I thought you'd respond better to the instant deployment of high explosives."

    She looks down at her own hand on the guidance councilor's shoulders, "It's incredibly powerful when I team up with others. I could, for example, give Sailor Moon as much time as she needs to charge her most powerful attack in a way that no enemy could possibly intercede or stop her. If I catch it in time I can turn a sure kill ranged attack into a cold miss. The best part is, because I've used it so sparingly, I'm almost certain no one on Obsidian even realizes it yet. In fact, I'm fairly sure I've even managed to hide the nature of my powers from Kyubey. If you really need it, I can completely blindside almost anyone either with overwhelming force, because I can attack as many times as I like in a single moment, or with deadly precision, because I have as long as I need to line up a single shot. Or grab a contested artifact out of the air faster than anyone else can."

    Her free hand reaches back and she flips her hair. "Now you know why I was so concerned with learning to escape grapples. In a moment like this if you grabbed my wrist, I wouldn't be able to use my best power to escape. Either neither of us would be moving in stopped time, or both of us would. That's the downside. If people start readying countermeasures to stop me, my value drops through the floor."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka doesn't betray much surprise at this sequence of events- though, it's been proven that she is very skilled at keeping her reactions subdued. It's not that she's not feeling surprise, or even some amount of awe. Just that she's long since learned the lesson that keeping your cool, adapting to circumstances, and never letting your enemies know when you've pulled one over on you are all key to surviving bad situations. This isn't one of those, but such ingrained instincts can't just be turned off. So she sits there, one brow quirked, as she watches Homura stop time, rearrange the furniture, play with explosives, and alternately unstick Kyouka from time as well to show her how it's done- making a point.

    She doesn't say anything at all while the demonstration is in progress, though Homura can likely see the gears turning behind her eyes.. and the gaze she turns upon the dark-haired girl is impressed, when she finally does respond. "I understand the risk you're taking in telling me this, Akemi-san. This is a power which is infinitely more powerful when your enemies don't know it's true nature.. and while I'm not your enemy, it only makes sense to keep the actual people who know the details to an absolute minimum. However... I suppose you also realize that the most effective coordination can only be achieved when your allies also know what they're working with."

    She seems to be thinking, and contrary to some unflattering rumors, there's no plumes of smoke emitting from her ears as she does. "This could be quite useful, yes. Thank you for showing me. For trusting me. You know that my avenues of interaction with magic are.. limited, in my current state. My advantage is my allies, and figuring out how to use them most effectively. This is definitely something I can use."

Homura Akemi has posed:
    Homura is impressed by Kyouka's ability to keep her cool when thrown off the deep end, metaphorically speaking. Sure, she would likely realize that any danger showing wasn't a real risk, but there's no denying that having everything around you suddenly shift in a nanosecond is going to be a jolt to the senses. By doing almost nothing at all Kyouka is proving that she can walk the walk as well as she can talk the talk. Homura had already made that assessment, but it's good to see it reinforced.

    "Yes. You've got both sides of it right. This power's usefulness is far more powerful when my enemies don't know it exists, and it's also far more powerful the more allies do know." She makes a motion around the classroom, "In a way it's like the Shed. It doesn't do anything on it's own, but it's ability to facilitate working with others will make a huge difference. On the other hand if the bad guys find a way to snoop we may be better off without it."

    She lifts her free hand and raises a finger, "But this was one of the considerations I made before, when you were first talking about finding a safe place to talk with others. This," she waves her arm around indicating the general area, "place is entirely safe, and entirely impossible to snoop on. There can be no better option for discussing plans. Having to maintain physical contact is annoying, but if you ever need a truly secret meeting, feel free to call me over and tie some strings onto each other's wrists."

    After a moment she notes, "Actually, I need to take that back. It isn't entirely inviolate. I'm not sure how many users of time magic you've met, but one thing I've learned; time mages are immune to the temporal magic of other time mages. I've met another Puella Magi who can slow time, but I am immune to her slowing, and she is immune to my stopping. For all I know she's standing around frowning right now waiting for the normal flow of time to resume."

    She waves her hand, "If there are any Obsidian members who's primary magic is temporal, I'll need to be very careful around them. On the other hand, if there are any other uses of time magic you know of that you trust, we need to know about each other as soon as possible. Because if they're present I don't have to be anywhere present. You just send me a message saying 'Do it now, five minutes' and I can freeze time for five minutes from anywhere, and they'll have that time to act. I won't even be around to be observed. It's a trump card within a trump card, but when it comes to situations that could make or break so many future endeavors, it might be worth laying on the table."

    At the thanks she gives a slight shrug, "You're doing the work I hoped to be doing myself and better than I could have managed. That's what I meant when I said I needed to go all in. Some things have fallen into place that means I need this to succeed. That wasn't always the case before; I had my escape plans. I still have them, but I'm not willing to use them anymore except in the absolute worst scenarios. And no, I can't take anyone with me if it comes to that."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head in agreement with everything Homura says "I understand." She says quietly, and it seems like she does. "I appreciate the offer.. and there may come a time when I need to take you up on it. The secure meeting, I mean. But don't worry... I appreciate that you're trusting me with this. I won't utilize the knowledge unless I really have to. After all.." A bit of a grin, "It may be your ace up the sleeve, but as long as I know about it and they don't, you become one of the aces up my sleeve in turn. And I know enough to know that such aces are by far the most effective when they're unexpected."

    At the mention of other time magic users, she makes a contemplative sound. "Sailor Pluto." She says immediately. "I don't know the details of her actual powers, whether she can stop or slow time or what, but she's called the Guardian of Time or something like that, and her magic definitely has temporal qualities. I've never actually seen her use it though, so my knowledge is second hand. But I can at least tell you to keep an eye out for her. Or talk to Moon about it- she knows a lot more than I do about the specifics."

    She smiles a bit sardonically at the praise given to her efforts. "You're too kind- honestly, a lot of this is being done by the kids themselves. I gave some of 'em a push, and I help where I can. But there's a lot of initiative being shown- Sailor Moon and her friend Osaka-san deserve a lot of the credit for organizing and planning.. I think Osaka-san is starting to think of this shed as her personal office." She chuckles. "Point is, you should talk to them too. Sometimes I feel like more of an observer than any kind of leader. Which, I think, is probably appropriate."